One Night at Riverside
by Vain Girl
Summary: The world really needed a crackbrained Swordspointfrom the Ellen Kushner novelSupernatural pastiche. Dean Winchester is the greatest swordsman in the city and everyone knows it. Sam is a mystery dressed in rags with an upper class accent. Wincest.
1. Chapter 1

Because the world really needed a crack brained Swordspoint/Supernatural pastiche. Seriously, the lack was painful!

None of this is mine. Totally unbetaed. This is all kind of novaberry's fault, except where it's mine. Haha.

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It happened in a flash one summer night, with tempers already worn by the unsettling heat and the contents of a cask of sour beer. The first fellow was solid, well barrel round and had a wicked looking sword that whistled when he drew it. He was new, of course he was new, or he might have known better.

The second was Dean Winchester, who was anything but new. Winchester laughed and stood up, green eyes shining in the firelight. "All right, you boast well enough," he said. "Let's see what else you can do."

The tavern crowed leaned over to watch, shouts winding down to murmurs as they craned their necks to get a better angle. Jo Harvelle slipped between groups, naming odds and collecting bets, smiling through her carmine lips.

It started off slow and easy. Winchester was playing, drawing his opponent out with lazy feints. He moved like a cat, smiling and dancing with lazy curiosity. Another swordsman might have taunted to unnerve, but Winchester could already see the sweat beading the man's brow. The odds were well stacked tonight.

Jo reached the back, a small filthy table blackened with soot from the fire. There was no one sitting there but a boy, swaddled in robes of student black. It covered every inch of skin from neck to toe, slipping over his wrists so only broad, elegant palms and long bare fingers showed through.

He was watching Winchester and no one but Winchester, too focused to even notice when Jo settled on the chair next to his. Students were too poor to have much worth betting, but Jo knew enough to know that this stopped few of them.

She placed one small hand on his arm, drawing his attention to her. "Care to place a bet? I can give you good odds," she murmured.

He jumped liked she'd taken a knife to him, arm dragging back so fast that he nearly overturned his chair. His face in the firelight was young, painfully young, all soft skin and dew stretched over sharp, broad bones. His eyes were fierce and careless, shifting from slate gray to brown as the light flickered over him.

Those eyes flicked over her, from foot to hair and his mouth curled into something very like disdain. "I should love to bet," he drawled. "Except, I haven't any money, not even enough to pay for this drink." He flicked one hand in a dismissive gesture, flashing a sharp, elegant wrist before the robe settled back over it. "Go off and bother someone who can pay for you."

Jo winced. "You won't last long here with that tongue on you, boy," she hissed, drawing herself up and away.

The student shrugged, attention already back on Winchester. Jo turned her own gaze in that direction. The fight was almost over. The new man was visibly dripping, muscles a tremor, bleeding from a few small cuts. Winchester wore a faint, distant smile and then he moved. Just once, almost too fast to see and there was a body crumbling to the floor.

Winchester gave a half bow to the cheering, hooting crowd. Jo couldn't help but smile at him even if she wasn't sure he could catch her gaze from this distance. She almost didn't notice the student shoving past her, careless of the effect of his sharp elbows on the people around him.

He was very tall, taller than she'd expected and his robes even more ragged. He was watching Winchester and his mouth curved into a smile. Breathless and brilliant, for a moment it chased away the sour disdain and the boy was beautiful.

Later, Jo supposed that was the moment that Dean Winchester looked back and saw him, with that smile on his face. Then, she only knew that he was pushing off the arms and offered drinks of his admirers and drawing through the crowd toward them.

"Who's he?" the student asked, almost softly.

"That's Dean Winchester," Jo replied impatiently. "He's the best. Best swordsman in this city, at least for the moment."

"Ah. Really?" the student drawled and smiled again.

Jo knew that look, even if it was usually less sharp. She'd seen it directed at Winchester a thousand times, usually by whispering maidens, but not a few pretty boys. She sighed. She knew better than to offer a warning, she really did. "Yes. He doesn't fuck boys as far as I'm aware. You shouldn't fuck him anyway, he killed his last one." Beautiful, wild Cassie, who'd come after Dean with her own knife in a fit of jealousy. But, yes, he'd killed her. Everyone had seen it. Everyone had seen his face after.

As soon as she spoke, that was the moment the student's eyes caught fire. "Did he?" he whispered. "Did he really?"

Jo didn't answer, because suddenly Winchester was right there in front of them. He nodded at her. "Hello, Jo," he said and then he turned away looked right up at the student. And up.

"Hello," the boy said, his mouth still twisted into a sour parody of that earlier flash of smile. "She says you kill your lovers."

Dean blinked slowly and through a startled look at Jo. "Really?" he said.

"Not exactly." She flushed and shrugged. Let herself melt into the crowd to pay out bets, since it seemed best. She didn't stop watching them.

"She did say that," the boy's petulant voice followed her, pitching right through the people between them. "Is it true?"

Winchester laughed, she could hear it. She saw the motion of his arm and when she craned her neck he had his hand on the student's elbow. This time the boy didn't so much as flinch. "Your name-" she heard, in Dean Winchester's low, laughing voice.

"Sam. You can call me Sam," honey sharp voice with no face to distract from it, because that was hidden by Dean and a mass of others between her and the student. If Jo didn't know better, had never seen the rags and half starved thinness so very well, she would have placed that accent right down in the most elegant quarter of the Hill.

"Sam," Winchester said and there was something in his tone she'd never heard, not since Cassie.

"You can fuck me, you know," Sam said in that careless poisoned honey accent. "You can kill me too, I wouldn't mind. Or both. Preferably fuck and then kill, though, because the smell might be a bother otherwise."

The last Jo heard from them was Winchester's surprised laughter, rich and low. Then the back door opened into the night and they were gone.

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	2. Chapter 2

Ah, yeah, the Campion children, I couldn't forget em if I tried. And I can tell you for nothing, young master, that I tried. Dream of em nights.

Well, if you want to buy a bit of hot wine for an old woman, I might be willing to talk about it, certainly, master. Come. Come and sit.

What? Me? I was no one, just the maid of all works, bustin' my ass with all that clanging and cleaning and carrying great heavy casks of water and what knows what else up and down them stairs. Things were a little hot for me here in Riverside after this one night with what says he was a Duke, up over Marie's Laundry, you see and... aw, fine, ignore an old woman's stories.

But them children are the ones you want to hear about, yes? Well there was two, the boy was Samuel and the girl was Jessica. Names sound familiar to you, then? I hadn't realized the story was still told, it's been near to three years since.

Poor little mites, some days I think the rich ain't fit to have children. That mother of theirs, always walking around wailing and moaning about how unfair it was she'd married so beneath herself, like she hadn't run off with the man to begin with.

And that father, well, the less said... all I need to say about them is they locked those two into the school room most days when they were mites, or so says she what was the maid before me. I don't mean for their lessons neither. The mother says it was too keep em quiet, but I- well it's not up to me to say.

No, sir, I really don't know much more. I'd say you already look angry enough with what I had said. You'd think those mites had been yours, and you looking barely old enough to sire your first. Haha! Hey, now have a drink, you'll feel better.

I know mine is getting a bit empty. Ah, yeah, more would suit me just fine, master, thank you.

It was better when they were older, you should know. The boy grew up a pretty one, tall as a weed and dark and clever with words as that grandmother of his. The girl even better, fair as a sunbeam, prettier than her mother, I'd say. Whenever the boy got to being a little too sharp, so you think that father of his was about to knock it out of him, the girl, Jess, would calm him down real quick. A stroke on the arm, a few words and Sam would just be still.

Mostly, anyway. No one asks too many questions about what marks a father leaves on his son, not even in the noble houses. Here now, drink up master. It was years ago, nothing to do for it now.

Ah, what became of Lord Campion? Well, he was ill of the white plague a year back, and scarred something awful by it, or so they say. He don't come out in public no more, that's for certain. I'm not one to be spiteful, not me, but I'd say it was fit vengeance. I think you agree.

But, you wanted to know about the children. There was some that said that they were maybe a little too close, those two, but me, I say, you can't judge. Kept locked up and quiet like that, nothing but books and each other for company, it doesn't surprise me.

Then it got around the house, right from the housekeeper herself, that little Jess had an offer in marriage. Mite wasn't sixteen, old enough to be a wife, maybe, but old enough to rule a great house? Maybe not. You could tell she didn't think so either, the way she went around the halls, weeping and carrying on like she was her own ghost. And Sam, well, Sam took it harder.

The fire? You have heard this story, haven't you? No, no, sir, I wasn't there that night. I had a bit of leave saved up, was visiting my sister in town. We were right here in this fine tavern in fact, and I won't soon forget it.

I do know the boy was driving himself to fits the weeks before I left. No wailing for him, didn't cry none, just those black, black stares for his mum and da, like he could kill them with his eyes. Worse than weeping, if I was to judge. And by nights, well... I spent some nights cleaning the stairs by his bedchamber and the screaming- I can't speak of it. May I never be cursed to dream so, nor you either, nor the worst man you know. They say it takes some of the noble houses, dreams like that, and somehow such dreams are more like than not to come about. Gifts, they call em. I say, better to be a common maid than have such 'gifts' as that.

Ah, but you're a country lad, you must have heard about the witch gifts in the old blood. No? Well then, I can- ah, fair enough. The children. So, I was here in Riverside during the fire, but when I come home-

Ah, when I come home the house is draped in black banners and they're burying little Jess in what was to have been her wedding gown. Or burying what was left of her along with the gown. It was the fire you see. Funny, it left scarce a mark in the children's rooms. I heard young Sam wasn't touched at all, but there was just enough left of Jessica to bury.

They say, and I couldn't say if it was true, me not being there, but they say they was locked into the hall that night, both of em. That maybe Sam had been trying to get Jess to run off with him rather than marry, something about coming to the city, maybe the University. She what was Jess' personal maid, she thought so and she should know.

And then the Lord and Lady Campion got wind and locked them both in. Orders not to come and let them out, no matter what. Too embarrassing to lose the bride that close to her wedding! And to her own brother, at that. So, or so the maid says, that night, when Sam was pounding on the door, begging for help, screaming that his sister was burning, that she was dying… they said no one came.

I don't know if it's true. I said I didn't know, someone would have to ask the guards at the door, or young Sam himself if he's alive yet to be found. Really, master, no need to be waving that sword in here.

The last I saw of the boy was kneeling by his sister's grave, the earth still churned, whispering something. He didn't cry none, I remember that. He just knelt there and stared, like he was dead too. The Lord Campion had orders to lock him back into his rooms that night, keep him there, but so far as I know, it never made it that far.

Boy was gone before the evening meal, poor mite. No one's heard of him since, from what I know.

Another drink, master? No, I don't mind having another at all. Warm a woman's bones these bitter nights. Must say, I hadn't expected you to be so kind, not from the stories they tell of you.

Oh, of course I know you, young master! I may be old, but I know swordsmen. Ain't never been one like you, neither, Master Winchester! I do thank you. Imagine, the swordsman Dean Winchester himself, buying a drink for the likes of me!


	3. Chapter 3

Lord Gordon Walker had a surprisingly sharp face under a well-ordered beard. When he spoke it was also sharp, as though he were commanding a troop of green horns on the battlefield and at any moment the barbarian horde was about to come charging over the hill. Not that a great lord like Walker would ever be bothered to go anywhere so vulgar, that was what Dean's sort were for, Dean assumed.

"I'm about to give you a history lesson. Now I know history is dull compared to skewering people, but in our instance history is about to intrude upon the present. Therefore, I suggest you do listen, Master Winchester," Lord Walker said.

"I'm here listening," Dean said, not quite grinding his teeth and not quite nodding.

His chin rested on his elbow, and he pinned Walker with his stare, wishing he could do it with his sword instead. Sam would do better here, he suspected. Or maybe not, it was hard to tell with Sam, especially when he moved toward angry or terrified. He reacted the same way to either emotion.

"The great houses have a duty to the commons, you see," Walker said, and if Dean's stare penetrated, he didn't show it. "It devolved on us during those days when the old kings needed to be… replaced." His mouth curved slightly, as if he'd made a joke. Sam would have rolled his eyes and said something appropriately cutting about kings, heads and the chopping block.

Dean's hands twitched. "Yes, that's very interesting I'm sure," he said, making it quite clear that he was sure it wasn't.

"Our duty is to stand between the natural world and the other world, as the kings once did," Walker said. "Though, not, of course, with, erm, sword in hand." He cast a quick look at the sword Dean wore even now. Dean said nothing, which Walker seemed to take as a hint to keep speaking. "Rather, with our own particular gifts."

Dean stood up, quickly enough that the chair rattled behind him. He tried to think of what Sam would say in his place and then how he could say the same thing, but so he didn't end up facing a hangman after leaving this room. "I was induced to come here, my lord, with the understanding that your acquaintance was in possession of something of mine," he managed to grit out without quite losing his smile.

"Do I try your patience?" Walker said, smiling like that was funny. "Not my intent. But, you are correct, my acquaintance has your boy. And I would like to retain your services in exchange for retrieving him for you."

Dean had no idea what he Walker was suggesting before he'd spoken and now he was just more confused. "You're suggesting that you need to hire me and that if I do what you like, you'll give me back Sam?" he repeated blankly, as if he were trying to recite a very long and very dry passage from one of the thick books Sam kept hiding under their pillows.

"Oh, you'll be well paid also, of course. A bit of extra motivation can't hurt, can it? Something to make it worth your while to get back that one rather than just picking up another," Walker said and waved his hand carelessly, as if Sam was the kind of thing you picked up off the street.

Dean tried not to let his hand drift too close to the hilt of his sword. Wrestled down the urge to disgorge his indignation, to make this man bleed for even suggesting that. Anywhere else, any other circumstances he would. Those narrow points of honor might a noble man's purview, but they paid for Dean's sword.

It didn't help that Sam would only laugh and taunt if he were here. Laugh and say it was true, of course Dean could go find another on the street. It was knowing that as much as anything that made Dean wonder how easy it would be to make Walker scream. Since Sam wasn't here.

Lord Walker and his 'acquaintance' might not know it yet, but both of them were walking dead.

"Let's say that I am motivated sufficiently," Dean said. Eyes straight ahead and unblinking on Lord Walker's. "What is it exactly you would like me to do?"

Walker shrugged, palms up. He didn't bother to spare Dean or his swordhilt any attention. "I have given it all to you in my note. You haven't read it?"

"I didn't have anyone to read it to me, did I?" Dean said through gritted teeth. That was what Sam did. Sprawl in front of the fire and read notes and requests that Dean had been sent over the course of the day. Insult everyone's handwriting and grammar and then burn half of them without telling Dean what they actually said.

Walker just gave him a confused look. "Why didn't you read it yourself?"

"Where do you think I would have learned to read, precisely, my lord?" Dean managed to say without actually rolling his eyes at the ridiculousness of it all. "If you want something from me, you must tell me what it is."

Walker gave a huffy, put upon sigh, like he couldn't believe the injustice of an illiterate swordsman making him repeat himself. "All the great houses have great gifts you see, but I need to make use of one that is not readily available to me. I need to make a guess at the future. And that, well that would be Tremontaine."

Dean shrugged. All the stiffness slide out of his body on a wave of readiness, like the calm just before a sword match. "Tremontaine? There's a Duchess, isn't there? Why not ask her?"

"No use to me. Mere women." Walker made a sour face, and Dean wondered what that mere woman had done to him. He hoped to find out. "No, I've been told there another one with the gift. Someone I'm sure would help me if I proposed it to him properly."

"Like you're proposing your assignment to me?" Dean muttered, brow raised.

Walker just smiled and nodded. "Yes, precisely so. I need you to find him for me and bring him here. His name is Campion, but his mother is the current Duchess' only child. He ran off, left his family. All the others who bore the gift are sadly no longer with it."

Dean just nodded, as if the name meant nothing, like most of the names of the noble houses meant nothing. "And how am I to find this Campion boy?" he asked with a studied, smiling indifference. Never mind that he wasn't actually ever hired to find people and this man was clearly insane. Unless finding them to challenge them.

"Well, they say he ran off to Riverside. You're the most famous swordsman in Riverside, so you'll do it." Walker rubbed his palms together and smiled. "Splendid!"

"I'll need to know where to start. Do you want me to challenge him?" Dean asked carefully, since that was usually what they wanted.

"No, no, nothing like that. I told you, I'll need his help. Greater good of the city. Very glorious." Walker stood up and started to pace.

Dean just watched him. "And you can't tell him this yourself? I'm sure he'd be very interested in such a glorious endeavor."

"I can't find him is the difficulty," Walker said, annoyance becoming visible. "You Riverside people are good at finding things aren't you?"

"Well, I can certainly attempt it." Dean smiled with his hilt around his sword. "And you will return what you took from me?"

"The boy?" Walker blinked like he'd forgotten him already. "Yes, yes of course. We only needed to be sure you'd cooperate. We'll send him on his way."

\

When Dean got back to their small, rented set of rooms in over the laundress' place he wasn't as surprised as he should have been to find that Sam was already there as Walker had promised. That sort might be mad but they weren't liars and Sam sitting in the corner by the fireplace, tossing wood in hunk, by hunk, as if it were cheap was proof of that.

"What are you doing?" Dean demanded, as if it was anything but obvious.

Then Sam looked up at him, eyes huge, almost green today, pupils dilated to nothing in the firelight. His robes were a wrinkled mess, sliding down pale, bare shoulders and his hair was loose, falling over his face in elf-locks. The fire flickered over his skin, painting him in reds and yellows. Dean cursed under his breath, at Walker, at Sam, at the world in general.

Drugged out of his senses, anyone could see it. Sam smiled. The red in his hands sparkled and Dean cursed when he realized it wasn't firelight at all, but blood over glass. That Sam had double handfuls of broken glass clutched tight against his palms.

"What am I doing?" Sam asked, calm as you please. As if it didn't hurt at all. The drugs, certainly. "What are you doing, Dean? Lord Walker spoke to you, didn't he?"

"He was pleasant enough," Dean said, because it was no use lying or arguing. Sam wouldn't believe him. "I'll have to kill him, of course. People can't think I'm to be blackmailed."

Dean went for the practical next, soaking some table linen with cold water, as if that would be much use for Sam's sliced up hands. He hoped it wasn't as bad as it looked.

"Yes. I remember his note. He was looking for the Campion boy." Sam's mouth twisted and Dean sighed, daubing at Sam's skin, trying to soak out some of the glass that Sam was still too drugged to feel. "That sad little brat who ran off to Riverside."

"Yes, he said that. You didn't read me that note." Not that Dean was surprised at that, not once Walker had explained its contents.

"The Campion boy. Lord Walker is afraid of the future, you see," Sam pronounced gravely. "He should be. And what did he say about me?"

"About you? Nothing. Or are we referring to the Campion boy?" Dean rolled his eyes. Walker really must have been a fool, and his acquaintance as well, to have had exactly what they wanted and not seen it under Sam's rags. As if Sam's accent wasn't enough to give it all away, never mind the sheer arrogant weight of him. They'd soon be late fools.

"And what did he say? That the houses of Tremontaine and Campion are a walking bloodbath? That I ruin everything I touch?" Sam said, eyes soft, mouth even softer, hazy and smiling. His gaze was fixed firmly on Dean and nothing else. "Because it's so. It is absolutely true. Do you understand what I'm telling you?"

"Sam," Dean said, just as softly. "Shut up." He pried Sam's fingers off the last of the glass shards, wincing at the slippery heat of the blood. Already drying from slick to tacky sticky. "He has no idea who you are," he added a little louder, but he doubted Sam heard him say that or much else.

"Dean," Sam said, and pressed a wet, unsteady kiss on Dean's cheek, smearing more of his blood on Dean's skin. "You think you're different? You're not. I'll ruin you too if you let me."

"Hush," Dean whispered. The old table linen was stained yellow from too many meals and not enough time with the laundress. It turned red when Dean twisted it around Sam's hands, soaking him up. "Hush."

"Don't let me," Sam said, his eyes wide and too young looking. "Don't let me do that to you, Dean."

Dean shook his head, saying nothing. He kissed Sam on the mouth, which finally stilled him when words couldn't. Stilled his mouth anyway, Dean could feel the vibrating tension in the tall, thin body, echoing into the kiss. He sighed and pushed Sam down onto the bed.

"You're drugged, Sam. You need to sleep it off," he said gently. He brushed Sam's messy, raggedly cut hair away from his eyes with slow fingers. He barely noticed he was smearing Sam's own blood over skin.

"No. No, no, no, sleep is where it starts," Sam moaned. "Dreams are where I ruin it and then the dreams follow me. They're watching us, Dean. He's right to fear the future."

"No one is watching us," Dean murmured. He kissed the cloth twisted around Sam's finger. Long, clever fingers, all dipped in gore. "I won't let them watch you."

"Dreams watch us. You can't stop them. Not even you," Sam muttered, but he looked at Dean and for a moment the haze around his expression cleared and he smiled, almost like himself. "I do believe you would try."

"I will," Dean promised. He pulled the thick woolen blanket around Sam, tucking it in, so Sam wouldn't complain too badly about cold. Listening to the complaints about the drug sickness would be painful enough. "So sleep. Sleep now."

"Fine. But only because you've promised," Sam mumbled and closed his eyes. Then, just when it seemed he might really be asleep, his eyes opened to narrow green and black slits and he said, quite firmly, "Lord Walker might have no idea who I am, really, but neither do you."

Dean sat beside him and watched, but he seemed to sink back to sleep. Dean thought about joining him, but didn't. Instead he spent the night doing practice drills off one particular spot on the wall already marked up by the edge of his sword. There was no point worrying about Sam's dreams, not until something less hazy came of them. For now, all he thought about was Lord Walker.

That was for tomorrow.


End file.
